It is to be understood that the instant invention pertains to a machine for automatically de-boning appendicular anatomical sections of small edible animals such as rabbits, and fowl of various types which would include but not be limited to old and young chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks and guineas, or an appendicular section of any small edible animal wherein said section is anatomically characterized by having a centrally extending elongated meat encased bone shaft and at the respective ends thereof a ball or a socket structure comprising the ball or socket parts of a ball-and-socket joint, exemplary only of which appendicular anatomical sections would be the thigh or upper arm wing section of domesticated poultry or the like.
Traditionally, in view of the relatively fragile bone structure of fowl and other small edible animals, as well as the practical mechanical handling difficulty encountered in automatically removing either raw or pre-cooked meat from appendicular anatomical sections of small edible animals, wherein said sections have a centrally extending elongated meat encased bone shaft with a ball or socket protuberance at the respective opposite ends thereof, without contaminating the meat removed therefrom with either scraped or broken bone fragments, meat peeling and removal operations involving said sections have generally been limited to various manual and/or a combination of manual and relatively simple manually operated mechanical means. Exemplary prior art disclosures which teach the combined manual and manually operated mechanical means removal of meat from an appendicular anatomical section as heretofore characterized would be those as set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 3,192,557 to Segur, dated July 6, 1965, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,629,903 to Turner, dated Dec. 28, 1971, wherein both of the aforementioned disclosures teach static fixtures which are employed to facilitate the manual removal of meat. In a subsequent disclosure by Segur as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 3,348,261 dated Oct. 24, 1967, there is shown a manually operated mechanical means employed to plow the meat off a poultry leg after the meat thereon has been longitudinally sliced to the bone along at least one side of the leg section.
Upon advent of the convenience food market there has been given rise to an increasing need for improved machinery which provides high-speed automatic de-boning capabilities for various foodstuffs, particularly poultry, and more particularly chickens, to provide de-boned pieces which are easily prepared and served, as well as providing specialty pieces for commercially prepared food service or restaurant menu features, or retail sales features of loose or packaged fresh or frozen all-meat pieces, or packaged pre-cooked convenience meal preparations. Exemplary of the most pertinent disclosures teaching automated de-boning of appendicular anatomical sections of small edible animals are those as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 3,261,054 to Kaplan et al, dated July 19, 1966, which shows a poultry processing machine for automatically removing thigh and drumstick meat from poultry leg bones as the entire leg member is subjected to a meat stripping mechanism comprised of a pair of oppositely disposed resiliently mounted stripping bars mechanically cooperating with a suspension hook conveyance system, as well as that disclosure taught in U.S. Pat. No. 3,672,000 to Martin et al, dated June 27, 1972, showing a machine for automatically removing the bone from a chicken thigh by mechanically engaging the ball at one end of the thigh bone and then by means of engagement of the thigh section by stripping blades, and the longitudinal movement of said stripping blades, effect a removal of the meat from the bone. Other disclosures of a pertinent nature which also generally teach automated de-boning of appendicular anatomical sections of small edible animals would include U.S. Pat. No. 3,457,586 dated July 29, 1969, and U.S. Re. Pat. No. 27,873 dated Jan. 8, 1974, respectively to Zwiep et al and Weits et al, showing in both a machine for heavy-duty de-boning applications such as removing bones from hams, beef shoulders and legs, and the like, wherein the functional apparatus employed is a variable opening dull edge rotary plow mechanism comprised of a plurality of blades which are automatically adjusted by means of a cam follower that rides the contour of the bone from which the meat is plowably removed by means of said blades. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,510,908 to Segur et al, dated May 12, 1970, dual slotted fixture devices for removal of meat, as disclosed generally in the earlier of the aforementioned Patents to Segur, are shown in combination with cooperating retractible bone clamping means each of which engages a bone at one end thereof and as the respective clamp means retract the bone is drawn through one of a selected slot in the corresponding fixture device and the meat is mechanically stripped from the bone in a manner similar to that as was previously accomplished by a combined manual/mechanical operation.
The instant invention, in view of the aforementioned pertinent prior art as well as also in view of the other disclosures cited hereinbefore or any combination thereof, is patentably distinguishable thereover in that the instant invention has utility features and new and useful advantages, applications, and improvements in the art of automatically de-boning appendicular anatomical sections of small edible animals by means not heretofore disclosed, as set forth hereinafter.